


raindrops on roses

by impossibleyear



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Angst, M/M, Ryden, loosely based on that episode of spn where every day is tuesday except ive never seen it lol, pretty odd era
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-05-30 21:32:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6441559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossibleyear/pseuds/impossibleyear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brendon doesn’t know what’s worse; waking up every day to hear his own voice, or watching Ryan die over and over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Brendon doesn’t know what’s worse; waking up every day to hear his own voice, or watching Ryan die over and over.

Wait, yes he does. It’s the second one. Definitely the second.

It starts with a normal day on tour. Well, as normal as a day on tour can be, at least. Brendon wakes up to I Write Sins on the radio and groans as he shuts it off.

The bus’s coffee maker is messed up again and Jon goes to get someone to fix it. Spencer’s over at the opener’s van, trying to “make friends” or something. That leaves Ryan and Brendon sitting in the lounge alone.

It’s silent for a little while.

“Brendon,” says Ryan eventually, his voice a little hoarse from disuse. He clears his throat.  
“Yeah?”  
“Do you know when we’re on tonight?”  
Brendon laughs. He has, in fact, forgotten. “Ask Spence, he’ll know.”

Ryan shrugs and adjusts his headband. Though Brendon would never admit it, it looks good on him. He grins absently, still staring at Ryan’s hands running through his hair. Ryan clears his throat again, and Brendon quickly averts his gaze.

The silence is broken by Jon noisily crashing onto the bus. “Somebody’ll be by to fix it in a while,” he says to nobody in particular. Then he continues back to the bunks. Brendon stands.

“Going to go take a walk,” he says. What a BS excuse. Ryan knows it too: he looks bitterly amused as Brendon leaves.

God, that boy.

Brendon can’t remember a time when he didn’t love Ryan with every scrap of his soul. They met in high school and it was like a switch flipped on. They’d had a Thing for a while, last summer- a messed up, secret, stolen-kisses-backstage-and-nights-in-hotel-rooms sort of Thing. Ryan was the one who broke it off, of course. He was afraid it was obvious. _No duh, Ryan. But who cares, really? I love you. And that’s what matters…_

There’s Spence.

“Coming back from fraternizing with the enemy?” says Brendon. He can pull off a joking tone, if he tries. This time he doesn’t try hard enough.  
Spencer rolls his eyes. “Brendon, I know you were really into that girl last summer, but you need to get over it, okay?”  
Oh, yeah. The others don’t know. It would be a riot if they did. Probably break up the band. Brendon made an excuse, some girl he met in Denver, and they bought it. At least, Brendon thinks they bought it. Sometimes he doesn’t know about Jon.

Brendon shrugs. “Yeah, I know. Just thinking, you know?”

Spencer claps him on the back and moves on, probably to the bus. Brendon finds a spot in the grass and sits. The sun feels nice today, warming his back and the tips of his ears.

That’s when he hears the scream.

He’s up and moving before he can fully comprehend it and he’s sprinting toward the bus because oh god, that scream sounded like _Ryan_ and the thing that really scares Brendon is the raw pain in it. He’s never heard anything this full of agony. He’s at the bus and climbs in right before Spencer, and the sight Brendon sees next punches the breath out of his lungs.

It’s Ryan, but wrong. His blood is in the wrong place. Isn’t that supposed to be inside his body? Ha. What an embarrassing mistake to make, Ryan. Brendon needs to do something. But he’s frozen, rooted to the ground.

Ryan’s eyes are wide. His skin is pale, paler than usual. “Bren,” he chokes.

Brendon’s feet are unstuck. He finds himself by Ryan’s side, kneeling in the slippery blood. “Ry.”

“Fuck, that hurts,” breathes Ryan. His eyes flicker shut, then open again.

“Ryan, don’t,” pleads Brendon. “Please, Ry, what happened?” He puts a hand on the ground to steady himself. It touches something sticky, and he’s nauseated when he realizes oh god that’s blood.

Ryan laughs, but it’s more like a cough. “I don't know...but they had a knife...”

Somebody did this to him. Somebody did this to Ryan, the most innocent and beautiful person in the entire world. Brendon feels sick to his stomach. “Where are you hurt? We can help you. Bring you to the hospital.”

Ryan shakes his head as he gestures to his stomach. “Too late.” He winces as Brendon lifts the edge of his blood-sodden shirt.

“Ryan,” says Brendon softly as he stares at the gaping wound.

Ryan coughs once more, and then he’s gone.

The rest of the day is a blur: ambulances, cancelling the tour, weeping bandmates and roadies and Brendon, alone in his bunk, staring at the curtain. He’s not thinking, not feeling.

He didn’t even tell him he loved him, one last time.

He doesn’t mean to drift off to sleep when he eventually does, but he welcomes it.

***

Brendon wakes up the next morning to I Write Sins on the radio. For a second, a blissful second, he forgets what happened yesterday. Then it comes crashing back over him, and he wishes he could go back to sleep.

There’s voices from the rest of the bus. They don’t sound sad, not like Brendon is feeling. Maybe in a few minutes he’ll muster the strength to tell them to shut up, he’s trying to mourn the boy he loved.

Then he hears that voice, that soft, familiar voice, and sits bolt upright. He was imagining it. He must have been, because people don’t just come back to life. But there it is again. “…coffee…”

Brendon stands up and walks out to the kitchen on shaky legs. “Ryan…?”

And there he is. He’s just as beautiful as he was yesterday, only without all the blood. Brendon could cry from relief. It must have been just a dream.  
Jon sighs. “Hey Brendon. The coffee maker’s broken.”

And _what the fuck._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sorry lmao

It only takes Brendon a moment to calm down. Sure, the coffee maker’s broken. He must have heard somebody talking about it in his sleep and translated it into a dream.  He coughs to cover up his awkward silence. “Is someone going to fix it?”

              “Jon was about to go out and find somebody,” says Ryan quietly. Brendon holds back a flinch. _He’s not dead, it was a dream. A very realistic dream…_

              Jon nods and heads out, leaving Brendon and Ryan alone, and Brendon can’t help but think _again._ There’s silence. Brendon sits down and kicks his feet up onto the couch.

              “Brendon.”

              Brendon’s overwhelmed with dread. If he knows what Ryan says next, that can only mean one thing. One terrible, unrealistic thing that Brendon doesn’t know how he could explain to himself. “Yeah?”

              “Do you know when we’re on tonight?”

              Brendon reels.

 

***

              “I don’t know,” he says, after a whole two seconds of panicking. “Want to go find Spence? He’ll know.” Brendon doesn’t have much logic in his head at the moment- indeed, it seems that all logic has abandoned the world- but he knows that above all else he needs to _get Ryan off this bus_ or else he could die again, and it might be for real this time.

              Ryan narrows his eyes. “Why?”

              “Why?” repeats Brendon, confused. “So we can find out when we’re on. You wanted to know, right?”

              “No, I mean why do you want to go find him? Together?”

              Oh.

              “Ry...” Brendon slips up, and quickly corrects himself. They’re not intimate, not even friends really. “Ryan, it’s not like that. I just thought you’d. Uh. Appreciate the fresh air.”

              Ryan’s silent for a little while, and Brendon bites his tongue. Finally, he answers with a simple “yeah, sure” and Brendon almost audibly sighs in relief. Now he can continue with his day, Ryan safe, and hopefully continue with another day tomorrow instead of the same one again. They head off the bus together in silence. Neither can think of anything to say.

              Voices come from deeper into the trees at the other side of the grass where tonight’s crowd will gather. Brendon can hear playful shouts and laughter. He motions toward the area in question. “I think he might be over there.” Ryan bites his lip and nods- grudgingly, Brendon can tell. It hurts. Ryan doesn’t want to spend time with him anymore.

              When they make it to the woods, the others (as in, some roadies and Spencer) are gathered around a train track. Spencer is walking on one of the rails, fighting to keep his balance. Finally, he slips and trips awkwardly off the track. He laughs good-naturedly. “Hey Ryan. Brendon. We’re trying to see who can walk the farthest. Lydia has the current record.” He motions to one of the roadies, who grins and waves.

              “Let me try,” says Ryan, and Brendon watches as he steps onto the rail. Brendon notices how wide the tracks are and a vague feeling of unease settles over him as Ryan walks, one foot in front of the other, along the rail. There’s a quiet look of concentration on his face, the one he gets when he’s playing onstage or reading books of poetry. Brendon adores it, the way his eyebrows wrinkle and his lip is caught between his teeth.

              Brendon hears the train before anyone else. His eyes widens as he realizes, no god no fuck no, and he runs forward to get Ryan off the track as the train rounds the bend and the others see it and start to freak out. Ryan freaks out too, looking around and stumbling and tripping into the middle of the track as the train rushes toward, blowing its whistle in a shrill scream like a charging demon. Brendon screams his name- Ryan no no no no no- and he’s forced to step back, forced to watch as the train rushes right past and Ryan’s gone.

              _Again._

              And Brendon can’t look, can’t see Ryan’s body on the train track, mangled past recognition. He covers his eyes and screams. It’s an unholy noise full of pain and grief, and tears blur his eyes. He failed. He couldn’t keep him safe.

              He passes out.

              And he wakes up to the sound of Ryan’s voice. The coffee machine’s broken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk this one is bad and short but chapter 3 will be better hopefully


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ryan dies again, but you probably already knew that

At least he’s still alive. That’s all Brendon can think. He’s stuck in a loop of the same day over and over again, and Ryan keeps dying, and goddamn I Write Sins Not Tragedies is on the radio again, but at least Brendon still has a chance to save him. 

Perfect.

He stumbles out of his bunk and into the lounge. “Ryan, d’you want to go to the store with me?” he says, throwing caution to the wind. He needs to get the boy out of here. 

“Wh-“ responds Ryan. 

Brendon cuts him off. “Yes? Awesome. Okay, let’s go before rush hour starts. We can get some coffee.”

Ryan rolls his eyes and runs his hands through his curls. “See you later, guys. Brendon wants me to go on a date with him.”

The others chuckle. HA. If only they knew.

They make it two feet out the door before Ryan turns on him. “Okay, what’s going on?”

“I thought you might want some coffee.” Brendon’s defensive and Ryan knows it.

“Don’t try that BS with me,” he says. “Listen, it’s over, okay? It’s been almost a year. You have got to be over it by now. Otherwise, I don’t know how this band is going to survive.”

“Ry,” says Brendon pleadingly, raising his hands in surrender.

Something flashes in Ryan’s eyes. Brendon lets hope cross his mind for an instant before he’s pinned up against the side of the bus. Ryan’s arm is against his throat and their noses are a millimeter apart. Brendon’s eyes flicker shut and he feels lips crash against his own.

The kiss is hungry and angry. Ryan obviously has no interest in being gentle. He bites, and Brendon tastes salty blood on his tongue. Ryan finally breaks away and catches his breath. Brendon inhales and waits.

“Last time,” says Ryan. “Okay?”

Brendon nods as much as he can- Ryan still has him crushed against the bus. Ryan nods and releases him. “Coffee.”

Brendon almost chokes, but whatever, he’ll go with it. The convenience store is a five minute walk from the venue. It’s an awkwardly silent trip.

Ryan doesn’t speak to him anymore. He quietly buys a black coffee and sits at a table in the corner, leaving Brendon to wander around the store looking at the various tchotchkes they have for sale. He glances over to find Ryan with his head in his hands, his coffee barely touched. Brendon knows it’s selfish, but it gives him some sort of twisted satisfaction.

Ryan picks up his coffee and chugs it, Brendon watching from behind a rack of personalized keychains. He watches in slow motion as Ryan’s eyes open wide and he coughs, over and over, his coughs eventually giving way to a horrible rattling gasp. Brendon regains his senses and rushes over, but he knows before he tries the Heimlich and CPR and calls 911 that he’s already gone. It’s Wednesday again and Ryan is dead. He just hopes, to God or who/whatever’s making this happen, that he gets another chance.

And he does. I Write Sins and the coffee maker and Ryan are back the next morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOL THIS SUCKS


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> big suicide tw for this one take a wild guess as to why

Brendon hasn’t prayed since he was a child, but he still remembers how.

He looks toward the ceiling of his bunk and whispers. “Hey, man. If you’re out there, um… please just stop this, okay? Just let it end.” He chokes on the end of the words as they slip out of his throat, and rubs his eyes furiously as he rips aside the curtain. “Coffee maker’s broken?”

Ryan and Jon exchange glances. “Yeah,” says Jon. “How did you…”

“I heard you talking,” says Brendon breezily. Ryan’s eyes widen, and he looks away. Brendon will investigate that later. For now he has to save him. “Ryan. Um…” He remembers what had happened last time he tried to get Ryan out of here like it was yesterday. Ha. “Where’s Spencer?”

“Went off to the opener’s bus. Why?”

“I wanted to ask him when we’re on tonight.”

“Seven,” replies Ryan, and steps off the bus.

_He knows? Then why did he…_

Brendon follows him.

He finds Ryan on the grass where Brendon had sat the first day, the one where he didn’t know he was trapped in some heart-rending time loop. Brendon feels a twinge of déjà vu as he sits next to his…friend? Bandmate? Ex-lover? He stops his train of thought from traveling any farther and regards Ryan, waiting for him to speak.

“How much did you hear?” Ryan asks cautiously.

“Of what?” says Brendon, curiously.

Ryan shuts down. “Never mind.”

Brendon scoots closer. “Nah, BS. Tell me.”

There’s a pregnant pause that seems to last for hours.

“Jon was asking me if I still love you.”

Brendon waits.

“I don’t.”

“Good,” says Brendon, crushed. “I don’t either.” He picks himself up and heads back toward the bus. He hopes Ryan will be okay back there in the grass. No trains, nothing to choke on, nobody with a knife…maybe today will be the day Ryan lives. Maybe this is punishment for Brendon for still loving him. If so, he hopes this will be the end.

He’s dead wrong.

That evening, after the show, Brendon heads out to party with everyone to celebrate the end of the first leg of their tour. Ryan is inconspicuously absent, and 5 minutes in everybody’s too drunk to realize somebody’s missing. Brendon stumbles back to the bus early out of some sense of urgency and heads to the bathroom. He really has to fucking pee after drinking all those beers.

He steps into the bathroom, flips on the light, and can’t comprehend the scene in front of him.

Ryan’s dead again. He’s in the bathtub and his wrists are slit. There’s more blood than water. It’s all over the floor and there’s a note on the sink in his goddamn elegant handwriting.

“It’ll be okay tomorrow morning,” mutters Brendon. He repeats it again. And again. He tears his eyes from Ryan and snatches the note.

_Brendon, I lied._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have wifi back so updates may or may not be more frequent depending on whether or not i quit being lazy


	5. Chapter 5

Brendon sits up with a new sense of urgency the second he hears himself singing about  _ closing the goddamn door  _ on the radio. He pushes aside the curtain, swings his feet to the floor, barrels into the lounge, and forces a smile to his face. “Morning. Did I hear someone say the coffee maker’s broken?”

Ryan and Jon, congregated to mourn the loss of the machine, regard him with slight disinterest. Nobody speaks for a couple seconds. Ryan finally throws Jon a tiny huff of annoyance and mutters “yeah, Jon’s about to go get someone to fix it.”

“Cool, cool,” says Brendon, distracted. His mind is racing at a million miles an hour. His only thought, repeating like a stuck record, is  _ save Ryan save Ryan save Ryan  _ and suddenly, without any provocation and without Brendon even really noticing it’s happened, it changes to  _ I love him I love him I love him. _

“Earth to Brendon,” says Jon loudly.

Brendon snaps out of it and looks at Jon disconcertedly. “Yeah. Yeah?”

“I’m going to go now. There’s cereal if you want any.”

Brendon says “okay” at the same moment Ryan says “we’re not kids, Jon.” Jon disregards this and steps off the bus, leaving the two of them alone.

“Ryan,” starts Brendon, without even an instant of hesitation. He’s running on pure adrenaline at this point.

“What,” says Ryan. There’s no inflection in his voice to indicate that it’s a question.

“God, this sounds stupid, but- I’m stuck in this time loop, okay?” Ryan scoffs but Brendon forges on. “Every fucking day, I wake up, and I Write Sins is on and the coffee maker is broken and I try to stop it but you always end up dying, I have to watch you die, and then it starts right back over again and nobody remembers anything except me.”

Ryan stares at him. Brendon doesn’t blame him. He wouldn’t believe it either.

“I die every day?” he asks eventually.

“You believe me, then?”

“Not necessarily,” says Ryan. “But answer me.”

“Yeah,” says Brendon.

“How long has this gone on? And how...how did I die?”

Brendon counts it up quickly in his head. “This is the fifth day. The first time you were stabbed. The second time you were hit by a train. The third time you choked. Yesterday, or uh, today I guess, last time-” Ryan makes a  _ get on with it  _ gesture and Brendon interrupts himself. “Last time, you. Killed yourself.”

Ryan’s face goes pale, and he sits down heavily on the couch built into the wall of the bus. “Then I believe you.”

Brendon sits down next to him, reaches over, and takes his hand, and Ryan lets him. They just sit for a little while.

“So I’m going to die today,” Ryan says eventually. “If we don’t stop it.”

“I can’t stop it,” says Brendon. “I’ve tried.”

_ "You  _ can’t,” says Ryan. “But maybe  _ we  _ can.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic is back from the grave woooooo! this chapter is the beginning of the last day in the loop, just a little spoiler for everyone wink wonk


	6. Chapter 6

They leave the bus, and without either one of them really thinking about it they link their fingers together.

“What are we going to do?” asks Brendon.

“We’re going to get as far away from here as possible,” says Ryan firmly, and that’s that.

They keep walking until they reach the gas station where Ryan died on the third day. Brendon flinches a little involuntarily when he sees it, and Ryan squeezes his hand. “Let’s hitchhike.”

“Oh, no,” says Brendon. “No. Nope. Way too much danger.”

“Where’s the danger? If I die, it just starts over again.”

“I don’t want that, Ryan,” pleads Brendon. “I don’t want you to die and I don’t want to have to do it all again.”

“Okay,” says Ryan. “Okay. So what if we steal the tour bus?”

Brendon’s about to answer when Ryan’s eyes widen and everything goes dark.

***

He wakes up to motion.

He can’t see, but he can feel that he’s in a car, probably the back of a van judging by how he’s sitting. Experimentally, Brendon tries to move his hands, but finds to his extreme dismay that they’re zip tied behind his back.

“Brendon?”

“Ryan,” Brendon tries to say, but what comes out is more of a choking sob.

“We’ll get out of this,” says Ryan, but he doesn’t sound so sure. “Are your hands tied?”

“Yeah.”

“Mine too.”

They’re silent for a bit. The only sound is the rumbling of the van as it drives.

“I’m gonna try and get your blindfold off with my teeth,” says Ryan. “You’re blindfolded, right? I am.”

“Yeah,” says Brendon, realizing he is. “Take it off. Please.”

He hears Ryan scoot over to him and their knees bump. “That’s me,” says Brendon. He feels warm breath on his cheeks and suddenly he can see.

He was right; they are in a van. Ryan’s sitting in front of him, blindfolded. Their faces are close, very close. Brendon blinks.

“Do mine,” says Ryan.

Brendon snaps out of it. “Right.” He grabs Ryan’s blindfold with his teeth and lifts it over his head. Ryan’s brown, brown eyes meet his. They’re wide and scared. Brendon guesses that his look the same.

“Okay,” says Ryan, and takes a deep, shuddering breath. “Okay. That’s step one. Step two is getting out of this van.”

He can see Ryan start to think, but then the van comes to an abrupt halt and they’re thrown backward. 

“Shit,” gasps Brendon. 

The door opens and too-bright sunlight floods into their uncovered eyes. Brendon blinks hard- once, twice, three times- and finally the world comes into focus. There’s people in front of them, two dark figures in masks. One simple detail, though, sends a sharp bolt of hope through Brendon. They’re not looking. They’re turned away at the moment, talking to each other. He makes out something about a ransom and whatever, he doesn’t really care about their plan. He shoots Ryan a look with all the meaning he can cram into it, and Ryan nods. His goddamn perception, the way he can read Brendon so easily. 

Brendon loves him so much.

He mouths silently, counts to three, and as one, he and Ryan rush out of the van, catch the figures by surprise and shove past them, and run as fast as they can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, sorry i haven't updated in forever. i've got the whole story planned out in my head, and i know that there will only be 2 more chapters after this. anyway, thanks for reading


End file.
